1. Prehistoric Architecture
Lecture One
20 November November 2018

2. 1. Shelter & Dwelling: a. Occasional Caves and temporary tents
Early humans are often thought of as living in caves, largely because that where traces of them are found.

3. Painted Cave, a large sea cave, Santa Cruz Island, California

4. Painted Cave, a large
Lechuguilla Cave, New Mexico

5. Caves are Winter shelter
Caves are Winter shelter. On summer they live outside for the purpose of hunting and gathering.
hunting and gathering suggests the need for at least a temporary shelter, and this means the beginning of something approaching architecture.
Humans also had to fight with bears, wolves and other predators for possession of the caves.

7. a. Occasional Caves and temporary tents
Confronted with the need for a shelter against sun or rain, the natural instinct is to learn some form of protection shield against a support. A leafy branch, for example, against the trunk of a tree.
When there is no tree trunk, the branches can be leant against each other, creating the inverted V- shape of a natural tent. The bottom of each branch will need some support to hold it firm on the ground. May be a ring of stones. When next in the district, it make sense to return to the same encampment.

9. a. Occasional Caves and temporary tents
The first reliable traces of human dwellings, found from as early as 30,000 years ago, follow precisely these logical principles. There is often a circular or oval ring of stones, with evidence of local materials being used for a tent-like roof.
Such materials may be reeds daubed with mud in wet areas; or, in the open plains, mammoth bones and tusks lashes together to support a covering of hides. A good example , from about 25,000 years ago, has been found at Dolni Vestonice in eastern Europe.

11. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC
Once human beings settle down to the business of agriculture, instead of hunting and gathering, permanent settlements become a factor of life. The story of architecture can begin.

12. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC

13. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC
The tent like structures of earlier times evolve now into round houses

14. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC
Jericho is usually quoted as the earliest known town. A small settlement here evolves in about 8000 BC into a town covering 10 acres. And the builders of Jericho have a new technology- Brick, shaped from mud and baked hard in the sun. In keeping with a circular tradition, each brick is curved on its outer edge.

15. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC
Jericho: A Pre-Pottery Neolithic house (partially uncovered), with its typical round shape. Note the doorway at the top of the photo.

16. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC
Most of the round houses in Jericho consist of a single room, but a few have as many as three – suggesting the arrival of the social and economic distinctions which have been a feature of all developed societies. The floor of each house is excavated someway down into the ground; then both the floor and the brick walls are plastered in mud.

17. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC
Jericho: An artist's reconstruction of Jericho, showing the domed houses, the tower, the town wall and the moat outside.

18. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC
The roof of each room, still in the tent style, is a conical structure of branches and mud (Wattle and Daub).
The round tent-like house reaches a more complete form in Khirokitia, a settlement of about 6500 BC in Cyprus. Most of the rooms here have a dome-like roof in corbelled stone or brick. One step up from outside, to keep out the rain, leads to several steps down into each room; seats and storage spaces are shaped into the wall; and in at least one house there is a ladder to an upper sleeping platform.

19. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC
Khirokitia

20. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC
Khirokitia

21. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC

22. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC
And there is another striking innovation at Khirokitia.
A paved road runs through the village, a central thoroughfare for the community with paths leading off to the courtyards around which the houses are built.
The round house has remained a traditional shape.

25. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC

26. B: From Tent To Round Houses: 8000 BC
Buildings similar to those in Khirokitia are still lived in today in parts of southern Italy, where they are known as trulli.
Whether it is a mud hut in tribal Africa, or an Eskimo’s igloo, the circle remains the prevalent form in which to build a roofed house from easily obtained natural materials.
But with the success of agriculture and the need to house larger numbers of people and larger family groups straight walls and rectangles have proved to be more practical.

27. From round to square

28. c. Straight walls with windows: 6500 BC
One of the best preserved Neolithic towns is Catal Huyuk, covering some 32 acres in Anatolia, part of southern Turkey.
Here the houses are rectangular, with windows and doors. They adjoin each other, like cells in a honeycomb, and the entrance to each is through the roof. The windows are a happy accident, made possible by the sloping site. Each house projects a little above its neighbor providing space for the clerestory window.

29. c. Straight walls with windows: 6500 BC

30. Plan and aerial views
Of Katal Huyuk

31. c. Straight walls with windows: 6500 BC

33. c. Straight walls with windows: 6500 BC

34. c. Straight walls with windows: 6500 BC
Not surprisingly, an idea as excellent as this catches on elsewhere and brings with it other improvements.
In a walled village or town, on a flat site, windows require the introduction of lanes and courtyards. They will become standard features in human settlements.

35. Examples of early
Buildings from “Bannister Fletcher”. Note the progression from round at top of page to sophisticated layout at Tell es Sawwan

36. Skara Brae house Skara Brae (pronounced /ˈskɑrə ˈbreɪ/)
is a large stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the
Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland, Orkney, Scotland.
It consists of ten clustered houses, and was occupied from
roughly BC. It is Europe's most complete Neolithic
village and the level of preservation is such that it has g
ained UNESCO World Heritage Site status[1], and been c
alled the "British Pompeii"[2].
Wikipedia
Skara Brae house

37. Note location of Mesopotamia adjacent to
developing trade routes

38. “The Sumerians were people who lived in
Mesopotamia (Ancient Iraq) from the mid
6th millennium BC to the early 2nd millennium BC.
Among their architectural accomplishments are the
invention of urban planning, the courtyard house, and
ziggurat step pyramids. No architectural profession
existed in Sumer; however, scribes drafted and managed
construction for the government, nobility, or royalty.
Sumerian Architecture is the foundation of
later Hebrew, Phoenician, Anatolian, Hittite, Hurrian,
Ugaritic, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Islamic,
and to a certain extent Grecoroman and therefore
Western Architectures.”
Wikipedia

39. “Masonry materials
Sumer lacking both forests and quarries, used adobe-brick (also called mud-brick) as the primary material. A
dobe-brick was preferred over vitrious brick because of its superior thermal properties and lower manufacturing c
osts. red brick was used in small applications involving water, decoration, and monumental construction.
A late innovation was glazed vitrious brick. Sumerian masonry was usually mortarless although
bitumen was sometimes used. Brick styles, which varied greatly over time, are categorized by period.
Patzen 80×40×15 cm: Late Uruk period (3600–3200 BCE)
Riemchen 16×16 cm: Late Uruk period (3600–3200 BCE)
Plano-Convex 10x19x34 cm: Early Dynastic Period (3100–2300 BCE)
Since rounded bricks are somewhat unstable, Sumerian bricklayers would lay a row of bricks perpendicular to the r
est every few rows. The advantages to Plano-Convex bricks were the speed of manufacture as well as the irregular
surface which held the finishing plaster coat better than a smooth surface from other brick types.
Other materials
Building materials other than brick were used for sheathing, flooring, roofing, doors, and special applications.
These materials include:
Earth plaster used to seal and finish exterior and interior spaces of common residences
Lime plaster used to seal and finish exterior and interior spaces of wealthy residences, palaces, and temples
a type of terrazzo used as flooring
The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) used for ceiling lintels
The giant reed (Fragmites communis) used for roofing and rammed earth foundations
Terracotta panels used for decoration
Bitumen used to seal plumbing
Espcecially prized were imported building materials such as cedar from Lebanon, diorite from Arabia, and
lapis lazuli from India”
Wikipedia

40. Mesopotamian Ziggurat at Ur, c. 2100 B.C.
There are 32 known ziggurats near Mesopotamia. Four of them are in Iran, and the rest are mostly in Iraq. The most recent to be discovered was Sialk, in central Iran.

41. Joseph Campbell in his Masks of God books says that there is archaelogical evidence supporting a direct link between
Mesopotamian ziggurats and the pyramids of Egypt. Campbell also states that from Egypt, the Mesopotamian culture was
passed on almost simultaneously on two separate fronts to Crete and India. From India it reached China and from there it
crossed the ocean to the pre-columbian societies of Central and South America, which could explain the similarities between
ziggurats and Mayan pyramids.
An example of a simple ziggurat is the White Temple of Uruk, in ancient Sumer. The ziggurat itself is the base on which the White Temple is set. Its purpose is to get the temple closer to the heavens, and provide access from the ground to it via steps.

42. Engraving The Confusion of Tongues by Gustave Doré (1865), who based his conception on the Minaret of Samarra
The Tower of Babel has often been associated with known structures, notably the Etemenanki, the ziggurat to Marduk, by Nabopolassar (610s BC). A Sumerian predecessor of the Genesis narrative is preserved in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta.

43. The Painted Temple at Sumer
I - THE ANCIENT PERIOD (3, BC) 1 SUMER AND AKKAD Early Dynastic Period ( BC) at Warka (Uruk) The white temple Akkadian Period ( BC) at Ur The royal tombs Neo-Sumerian Period ( BC) at Ur The ziggurat 2 FIRST BABYLONIAN EMPIRE ( BC) Isin Larsa Period, Tel Harmal Early Babylonian Period (Hammurabi) 3 KASSITE DYNASTY (1600 ­ 1100 BC) Agarguf (Dur-Kuri-Galzu) 4 ASSYRIAN PERIOD ( BC) Assur - Nimroud - Nineveh - Khorsabad 5 LATE BABYLONIAN PERIOD ( BC) Babylon and the Hanging Gardens
The Painted Temple at Sumer

44. Characteristics of Sumerian Architecture
Temple a dominant element in cities – people lived to serve gods.
Stands on a ziggurat
Strong fortifications – walled cities, crooked street patterns
Internal walls to retreat to
In Later Mesopotamian eras 2900 to 2300 BC.
the palace became a dominant feature as the power of the kings grew
Tombs were important and lavishly furnished and decorated
Assyrians 1000 to 600 BC emphasized trade and war. Cities were heavily fortified
and had citadels as a dominating feature
The other dominant feature was the palace.
609 BC. – Babylonians conquer Assyria, Tower of Babel is from this time period